Books: Her Weight in Gold
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Her Weight in Gold
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"My name is--or was--Taylor, Alfred B. Taylor. I used to live in
Lincoln Avenue, quite a distance out. Perhaps you have heard of me.
Didn't the newspapers have an account of my disappearance last
February? They always print such stuff, so I'm sure they had something
about me. I broke through the ice off Lincoln Park one day while
walking out toward the crib."
"I--I remember," Hawkins managed to whisper. "You were the Board of
Trade man who--who--"
"Who took one chance too many," completed the dead man, grimly. "A
Board of Trade man often gets on very thin ice, you know," the
sepulchral laugh that oozed from those grey lips rang in the
listener's ears till his dying day. "These clothes of mine were pretty
good the day I went down, but the water and the fishes have played
havoc with them, I'm afraid. It strikes me they won't hold together
much longer."
"You--you don't look as though you'd hold together very long
yourself," ventured Hawkins, picking up a little courage.
"Do I look that bad?" asked Mr. Taylor, quite ruefully. "Well, I
daresay it's to be expected. I've been plodding around on the bottom
of the lake for a year and the wear and tear is enormous. For months I
was frozen stiff as a rail. Then summer came along and I was warmed up
a bit. The terrible cold snap we're having just now almost caught me
before I got out of the water. The trouble was, I lost my bearings and
wandered miles and miles out into the lake. Then it was like hunting a
needle in a haystack to find dry land. I'm sure I travelled a circle
for hundreds of miles before I accidentally wandered upon the beach
down there by the Fresh Air place. I really believe this is a colder
night than the first one I spent in the lake, and that day was
supposed to be a record breaker, I remember. Twenty-six below zero, if
I'm not mistaken. By George, I'm warming up nicely in here. I feel
like stretching a bit!"
"For God's sake, don't!" almost shrieked Hawkins, burying his head
beneath the covers.
"Very well, since you object," came to his muffled ears. "You must be
very warm in that bed. I'd give all I have in the world if I could get
into a nice warm bed like that once more."
Hawkins peeped from beneath the cover in dire apprehension, but was
intensely relieved to see that the terrible Mr. Taylor had not changed
his attitude. The eyes of the watcher suddenly fixed themselves on the
visitor's right hand. The member was slowly sliding off the arm of the
chair. Fascinated, Hawkins continued to watch its progress. At last,
it dropped heavily from its resting place. The position of the corpse
changed instantly, the sudden jerk of the dead weight pulling the body
forward and to one side. The head lolled to the right and the lower
jaw dropped, leaving the mouth half open. One eyelid closed slowly, as
if the cadaver was bestowing a friendly wink upon his host.
"Very awkward of me," apologised Mr. Taylor, his voice not so
distinct, his words considerably jumbled on account of the unfortunate
mishap to his mouth.
"Get out of here!" shrieked Hawkins, unable to endure the horror any
longer. "Get out!"
"Oh, you don't mean that, do you?" pleaded the thing in the chair.
"I'm just beginning to feel comfortable and--"
"Get out!" again cried Hawkins, frenzied.
"It's rotten mean of you, old man," said Mr. Taylor. "I wouldn't turn
you out if our positions were reversed. Hang it, man, I'd be humane.
I'd ask you to get into bed and warm up thoroughly. And I'd set out
the whiskey, too."
But Hawkins was speechless.
"Confound your penurious soul," growled Mr. Taylor, after a long
silence, "I've a notion to climb into that bed anyhow. If you want to
throw me out, go ahead. I'm used to being knocked about and a little
more of it won't hurt me, I guess. Move over there, old man. I'm going
to get in."
With a scream of terror, Hawkins leaped up in the bed. The dead man
was slowly rising from the chair, one eye fixed on the ceiling, the
other directed toward the floor. Just as the awful body lurched
forward, Hawkins sprang from the bed and struck out frantically with
his clenched hand. The knuckles lodged against the bulging brow of the
dead man and they seemed to go clear to the skull, burying themselves
in the cushion-like flesh. As the horrid object crashed to the floor,
Hawkins flew through the library and into the hall, crying like a
madman.
Other occupants of the building, awakened by the frightful shrieks,
found him crouching in a corner on one of the stair landings, his wide
eyes staring up the steps down which he had just tumbled. It was an
interminably long time before he could tell them what had happened and
then they all assured him he had been dreaming. But Hawkins knew he
had not been dreaming.
Three of the men who went to his bedroom came hurriedly down the
stairs, white-faced and trembling. They had not seen the corpse but
they had found plenty of evidence to prove that something terrible had
been in Hawkins' bedroom.
The window was open and the chair which stood in front of it was
overturned, as if some one had upset it in crawling out upon the fire
escape platform. One of the men looked out into the night. He saw a
man crossing the street in the very face of the gale, running as if
pursued. It was too dark to see the man's face, but the observer was
sure that he turned twice to look up at the open window. The figure
turned into an alley, going toward the lake.
The Morris chair was wet and foul-smelling, and the floor was
saturated in places. A piece of cloth, soaked with mud, was found
beneath the window sill. Evidently it had been caught and torn away by
the curtain hook on the window sash. Hawkins would not go near the
room and it was weeks before he was able to resume work at the bank.
And, stranger than all else, the dead body of a man was found in the
snow near the Fresh Air Sanitarium the next morning, but no one could
identify the corpse. The man had been dead for months.
THE TEN DOLLAR BILL
A CHRISTMAS STORY
Mr. and Mrs. Digby Trotter had been married just five years. Five
years before Digby had gone to his father to tell him that he intended
to marry Kate Anderson. The old gentleman grew very red in the face
and observed, more forcibly than considerately:
"You must be a dod-gasted idiot! You get married? And to that
brainless little fool whose father exhorts or extorts religion for
$600 a year at that miserable little church over there on Queen
Street--is that the girl you mean?" And then Trotter, pere, ceased
speaking to look searchingly into his son's face; an embarrassed smile
brightened his grim old countenance and he went on, good humour
growing stronger in each succeeding word: "You rascal! Why did you
tell me that? Do you know, for a moment, I actually thought you were
in earnest, and--well, demme! it did work me up a little. I ought to
have known better, too--but, then, you did say it as if you meant it.
Excuse me, boy; I guess I'm the fool, myself."
"That remains to be seen, sir," was the most polite thing that his son
could say under the circumstances, taking his hands out of his pockets
and putting them back again at once. "You see, it's this way, Father,
you laughed too soon. It's not so devilish much of a joke as you
think. I meant it."
Mr. Trotter's smile faded away as does the sunshine that hides itself
in the dusk of eventide. Father and son grew warm in the discussion of
this most amazing determination on the part of the latter and it all
came to a sharp end when both lost temper. When Digby jammed his hat
down over his eyes, buttoned close his overcoat and dashed out of the
bank into the street, he might have been heard to say, as a parting
shot:
"I'll marry her now if I starve for two thousand years!"
And marry her he did.
Trotter, senior, did not attend the wedding, did not send the young
couple a present, nor a greeting; in fact, he did nothing but ignore
them completely. He had told Digby that he would never forgive him and
had gone so far as to call on poor little Dr. Anderson, the
unfortunate possessor of a pretty daughter and a $600 charge,
expressing himself as earnestly averse to the union of their children.
When he had concluded his interview with the minister the latter was
extremely pale and nervous, but he was master of the situation. He
stood, holding open the door to his plain, pitiful old study and Mr.
Trotter, very much injured and crestfallen, was passing out with these
words stinging his ears:
"I am sorry, sir--just as sorry as you. I like Digby; he is a good,
open-hearted boy, but I had hoped to see Kate better wedded!" Then he
closed the door and seated himself in the old cushioned chair, staring
at the grate until the glare seemed to hurt his eyes. At least, they
grew very hot and dry, then streaming wet.
And so they were married five years ago. Since then their struggle had
been a hard one; both ends would not meet, no matter how firmly Digby
persevered in his efforts to bring about such a union. He would not,
could not ask his father for assistance, nor would that patient,
faithful little wife have permitted him to harbour such a design had
he weakened in his avowed intention to "get along without a dollar
from dad." Notwithstanding their feeble warfare against privation, in
which defeat hovered constantly over fields where victory seemed
assured, theirs had been a happy sort of misery. Digby loved Kate and
Kate worshipped him; his pity for her was overwhelmed by the
earnestness with which she pitied him. No struggle of his failed but
that she shouldered and bore the failure with him, cheering him when
he felt like lagging, smiling when he despaired the deepest. Between
them a speck of joy grew larger, brighter each day despite the gloom
that surrounded it. Their child was their one possession of worth, 4-
year-old Helen--sunny-faced Helen--Helen who suffered none of the
pangs because of the sacrifices made by those whose darkness she
illumined.
Trotter had married Kate with a heart overrunning with the glorious
ambition of untried youth, the happy confidence of strength, fully
convinced that nothing was necessary toward securing success save the
establishment of a purpose. And that is quite, quite the fact.
They began with a dollar and they had seen but few, since the
beginning, that they could call their own. Too late did Digby learn
that he knew but little and that the world was full of young men whose
beginning in life had been so much worse than his that necessity had
made them equal to the struggle for which he had been so illy prepared
by an indulgent parent. Digby found the banks in which he had hoped to
secure positions thronged with clerks and accountants who had worked
slowly, painfully from the bottom upward. Grey-haired men, whose lives
had been spent in the one great battle for gold, told him of their
years in the patient ranks; thoughtful-faced young men told him how
they had been office boys, messenger boys, even janitor boys, in the
climb up the Matterhorn of success. Here he was a man of 25, strong,
bright and the possessor of an unusual intelligence, a college man, a
rich man's son, but poorer than the smallest clerk that had ever bent
his throbbing, ambitious head over the desk in his father's bank, and
who had often envied the life of his employer's son. Now that son was
beneath them all because he did not know how to work!
Work--toil--slave! The definition of success.
At first the failures originating from inexperience had been of small
consequence to Digby. His old-time independence resisted the harsh
criticisms of his first employers and he had, on more than one
occasion, thrown away fair positions because the spirit could not
endure the thumb of mastery. For months he rebelled against the
requirements of servitude, but gradually it dawned upon him that
though the rich man was his father he was no longer the rich man's
son.
So, when the first year of their wedded life had rolled by, Digby
Trotter, still neat, still independent, yet not so defiant--wore a
haggard look which could no longer be disguised. The once fashionable
garments were beginning to look shabby; his recently purchased
clothing had come from the bargain counters in cheap "ready-made"
establishments; his once constantly used evening dress suit hung in a
closet, lonely and forlorn, minus the trousers. He was keeping the
books in a street car office and his salary was $40 a month.
When, at the close of their first happy, miserable year, her father
died and their baby was born, many changes came. They were forced to
take the house for themselves and had to be accountable for the rent.
Dr. Anderson had given them the right to call his home their own so
long as he should live and it was the earnings of two men that kept
the little establishment crowded with happiness, if not comforts,
during his lifetime. One day a blow came to them. The landlord ejected
them. Kate wept as she passed out through the little front gate,
leaving behind the dear old home with its rose bushes, its lilacs, its
gravelled walks, perhaps forever. Digby buttoned his coat tightly
about his thinning figure and scowled as he followed her through the
gate. He scowled at that invisible fate which preceded them both. Now,
at the end of five years, they were living in a tenement house, a
crowded, filthy place, ruled by a miserly, relentless landlord, whose
gold was his god.
The young husband had been employed by many men and in many
occupations during these five years. Fate pursued him always, despite
his dogged determination, his earnest efforts to surmount the
obstacles which crowded his path to happiness and peace. If a
reduction was necessary in a working force he was one of the first to
go: if any one was to be superseded by a new and favoured applicant he
was the one. On many occasions he had taken up his coat and hat,
stepping to the pavement with the crushed heart of a despairing man,
tears in his wistful eyes, his tired brain filling, almost bursting
with the thoughts of the little woman whose brave eyes would grow
large and bright when he told her of the end, and who would kiss him
and bid him not to despair. He could almost hear her suppressed sob as
he thought of her, her head upon his shoulder, her soft voice blaming
herself for having dragged him down to this.
In this warfare of poverty they had seen many hungry days, many
hardships, but neither had relinquished faith in Digby's ability to
baffle adversity and stem the tide. Like tennis balls, they had been
batted from one end of the year to the other, and now, at this time,
Digby Trotter and wife had become members of New York's "floating
population." Seldom did they live in one place more than three months,
sometimes less than one. Frequently they moved because their
surroundings were so distasteful to Kate, whose natural sense of
refinement was averse, not to poverty and squalor, but to the vice
with which it often is associated in districts where an ignorant and
vicious element flocks as if drawn by the magnetism of sin.
A man of strong will was Digby, and a woman of wonderful strength of
purpose was his wife, or he would have lost heart, and lost her in the
end. Only once had he come home to her intoxicated, driven to it
through despair and by what he thought to be approaching illness. On
awakening from the drunken sleep shame made him fear to meet the eyes
of her who suffered with him. But she had gently said:
"Don't be ashamed, Digby; poor, dear boy! You couldn't help it, I
know. But, dear, do try to be strong, stronger than ever, for baby's
sake if not for your own and mine. We shall all be happy yet, I'm sure
we shall, if you--if you will but resist that one misfortune."
He never drank another drop of liquor.
Then, at last, the brave little woman took in plain sewing, greatly to
Digby's anguish and mortification. Never had he felt so little like a
man as when she showed so plainly that it was necessary for her to
assist in the maintenance of the little household over which he
presided. The few dollars that she could earn kept them supplied with
food--at least part of the time. His odd jobs helped; the dollar that
he earned once in a while was made to go a long way. Not once did she
complain, not once did she cry out against the son who had taken his
father's curse for her sake. There are but few women who would be so
considerate.
When he came home at nights, climbing the wearisome steps that led to
their miserable home near the roof of the vast building he knew that
she would smile and kiss him, that the baby would laugh and climb
gaily upon his knee, and he knew that he would not have to tell her
that he had failed to find the coveted employment. His face would be
the indicator, and, beneath her first smile of welcome, he could
always distinguish the searching glance of anxiety; under her warm
kiss he could feel the words:
"Poor boy! I am sorry; you have tried so hard!"
Their home was poor, poorer than Digby had thought any man's home
could be, but there was no sign of the filth that characterised the
condition of other homes in the house. Mrs. Trotter kept it clean,
kept it neat, and kept it as bright as possible. While they were as
poor, if not poorer than the other inhabitants of this roofed world,
they were looked upon as and called "the aristocrats." No poverty
could remove nor deface the indelible stamp of superiority which good
blood and culture had given them as birthrights. Their apparel was
cleaner than anything of its kind in the building, fairly immaculate
when compared with the wretched garb of the beings who were looked
upon as human but who were--well, they were unfortunate to have that
distinction; something less would have been more fitting.
When occasion presented, Digby would bring home flowers, plucked from
the gardens that he passed. Kate would bedeck the room with the
blossoms, her eyes glistening as she thought of the lovely spot she
had known five long years ago. Once in awhile the more beautiful of
his tributes would adorn her coal black hair, lending wealth to what
seemed so much like waste.
They had curtains for their windows, too--muslin, of course--and,
although the windows were almost paneless, they presented quite a
home-like appearance, especially from the street, eight floors below.
Heavy wads of cloth served as glass in most of the vacant places, but
they did not serve well as light filterers. Besides all these
valuables they owned a bedstead, a stove, some chairs, a table, a
sewing machine and a mirror. Not another family in the house owned a
mirror.
But they were lovers ever--the same, sweet comrades in love. The baby
was their Cupid at whose shrine they worshipped. She ruled their
affections and there was no kingdom wider than her domain. Digby,
covered with shame, despair and bitterness against the world, turned
himself loose into the pasture of joy when she cooed her authority;
romped like a boy whose heart had never felt as heavy as a chunk of
lead; talked to her, sang to her with a voice that had never felt the
quiver of dismay. Upon these sad pleasantries Mrs. Trotter smiled her
worship. Better than all, Digby had never been compelled to walk with
her for two or three hours in the middle of the night. It is said that
she was the only child on earth that never had the colic.
On the 23d of December in the year of our story, Digby had gone,
bright and early, to the big queensware store of Balling and Peet,
word having reached him that they needed extra help during the
holidays. When he neared his old haunts, the prominent downtown
streets, instead of going boldly along the sidewalks as of yore, he
slunk through alleys and across corners avoiding all possible chance
of meeting the acquaintances of bygone days, the men about town, the
women he had known, none of whom would know him now. It was not that
he feared their recognition, but that they would refuse to look at him
at all.
The morning was bright and crisp, cold and prophetic of still greater
chill. Men in great overcoats passed him, muffled to the chin, their
whiskers frosty with the whitened air of life that came from tingling
noses; ruddy cheeks abounded on this typical winter day. Mr. Trotter
possessed no overcoat, but presumably following the fashion set out by
other wintry pedestrians, his thin sack coat was buttoned tightly and
the collar turned up defiantly. His well-brushed though seedy Derby
looked chilly as it topped off his shivering features. His face was
blue, not ruddy. Here and there he passed companions in poverty, but
their rags were worse than his, their faces more haggard. Never did he
feel more like the gentleman than when he saw what he could be if he
were not one.
Something jaunty beneath his brow-beaten spirits told him that he was
to have work, that his mission would be productive of the result so
long desired. In three months he had earned but ten days' wages and he
had found it rather difficult, not to say annoying to be a gentleman
with nothing on which to keep up outward appearances.
With an exultant feeling he approached the big store, but as he
entered it the old trepidation returned, the old anxiety, the old
shudder at the thought of failure. Being directed to the manager of
the busy establishment, he accosted him in the office, something like
meekness underlying the apparent straightforwardness to which his
manly exterior seemed so well acquainted.
The manager was different from others of his ilk. He greeted the
applicant kindly and told him to come back the next day at noon and he
would be set to work in the express department. If he proved
satisfactory he would be retained during the whole week, perhaps
permanently. They were looking for good men there, he said. Digby's
whole being seemed lighter than it had been for months when he left
the place and hurried homeward.
Kate's heart thumped strangely when she heard him coming down the long
hall with great rapid strides, so unlike the usual slow, deliberate
tread. She opened the door to admit him and when he clasped her in his
arms and rained kisses upon her face she knew that she was but
receiving the proofs of her sudden guess. Their frugal meal was
dispatched slowly, the diners allowing their tongues to display
greater diligence than their teeth. They were all very happy.
The great rush of business was at its height when Digby strode between
the counters of Balling and Peet's store the next day noon, on his way
to the office. Hundreds of people thronged the place, and he could not
help thinking of the days when he, a lad, had accompanied his mother
to this same great store where purchases were made that now seemed
like dreams to him. The smallest priced article that stood on the
counters was now beyond his power of possession. Mr. Sampson, the
manager, was in the office when Digby entered.
"Ah, you are here, I see," he said, but his voice was not so friendly
as it had been on the day before. "I am sorry, Mr.--Mr.--"
"Trotter," volunteered Digby, forgetting to add the servile "sir." His
heart was cold with apprehension.
"We were forced by rush of business this morning to put extra men to
work much earlier than I had expected. Not knowing your address I
could not notify you, and we have filled the places with men who came
in early. We did not expect the rush quite so early, you see. I am
sorry, sir. Perhaps we can do something for you later on."
Digby's eyes were misty, but there was a gleam of proud resentment
beneath the mist. His first thought was: "How can I go home and tell
her of this?"
"Have you nothing else, sir, that I can do?" he asked, from the depths
of his disappointment. He actually hated the man who had failed to
remember him--unreasonably, he knew, but he hated him.
"Nothing, I believe, Mr.--Mr. Potter--no, there is nothing at all.
Good day." The manager turned to his desk and Digby, smarting to the
very centre of his heart, shot a glance of insulted pride toward him,
while beneath his breath there welled the unhappy threat: "I'll some
day make you remember me! I'll not always be at the bottom."
Defiantly he strode from the office, banging the door after him
indignantly. The manager looked around in mild surprise and muttered:
"Poor devil! I suppose he hasn't had a drink all day."
When Digby reached the sidewalk the bright sunlight sent him tumbling
back into the reality of his position. Hardly knowing what he did, he
turned the corner, meeting the cutting wind from the west. The
moisture that came into his tired eyes as he walked dejectedly along,
however, was not caused by the wind. It came from the cells of shame,
disconsolation and despair.
Ahead of him on the busy thoroughfare walked an old-time friend, Joe
Delapere. But a few years ago they had been boon companions, running
the same race, following the same course together. Now one slunk
along, shorn of his rapid spurs, while the other sped the gay course
in happy unconcern. If Joe had a care it was over his love affairs,
and, as he had admitted, they were annoyances more than cares after he
had ceased to care. Digby was bitter against the world he had once
inhabited, his father more than all the rest of it together. That was
the difference between their ways of looking at the world.
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